"We the people" tell the government what to do, it doesn't tell us. Our Constitution is a document in which "We the people" tell the government what it is allowed to do. "We the people" are free. Ronald Reagan Farewell Address 1989

[…For purposes of this post, I will only reach back to the past hundred or so years – but if you are really interested in the subject I would recommend a book by James Cook that details all of Georgia’s Governors. (The Governors of Georgia, 1754-2004, for those of you who are interested)

Roy Barnes: Most of our former Governors have never been ousted from Office. And typically our former Governors who have ran for office after having departed for at least a term have failed to capture the office again. Several have tried, the most recent likely being Lester Maddox and Ellis Arnall. Barnes would join Eugene Talmadge as a “comeback” Governor. Like many former Governors, Barnes is a lawyer.

Nathan Deal: Typically the pathway to the Governor’s mansion has not involved a stint in Congress. Deal is considered more “rural” than the other candidates, which such a description would put him in line with a majority of former Governor’s. Nathan is outside the median age of the average Georgia Governor, however he would not be the oldest elected. Governor Hardman was 71 when first elected – Hardman served two two-year terms, making him 75 when he left office. If elected to two terms, Deal would become the oldest serving Governor as he is presently 68. Deal, like Barnes, is a lawyer.

Karen Handel: Would join only three other Governors as having been not been “Georgia born and raised.” Obviously, she would be the first female elected Governor. She would also be one of a very few of our past Governors who did not have a college degree. Handel has served in County government and as Secretary of State, neither of which present the usual pathway to the Governor’s mansion. She does however fit the typical age profile of our past Governors…]

A federal investigation into a meeting at the Georgia Capitol last year involving Nathan Deal, then a member of Congress, has not targeted Deal, his chief of staff or his Gainesville business partner, Deal said Wednesday.

None of the parties to the meeting, in which Deal sought to preserve a lucrative longstanding business relationship with the state, is the subject of the investigation, those parties or their spokesmen said. The Atlanta Journal-Constitution reported Wednesday that the grand jury had subpoenaed state Revenue Commissioner Bart Graham, with whom Deal and others met to talk about Deal’s business, to give evidence relating to the meeting.

Deal, who is in the Aug. 10 runoff for the Republican nomination for governor, said the timing of the grand jury revelation is suspect.

“I think it is somewhat ironic that this surfaces after the original primary and just a couple of weeks before the runoff,” he said in an interview with the Associated Press Wednesday. “I think you recognize that it is being used as a political tool.”

Deal’s campaign spokesman told The Times of Gainesville Wednesday that “all of this has been put behind us.”

“Neither Nathan, nor anyone who worked for him, nor Ken Cronan, is under federal subpoena,” said spokesman Brian Robinson. “After we found out about this, we talked to the U.S. attorney’s office and they have assured us that Nathan nor anyone else is the target or the subject of a federal investigation. The timing of this is suspicious, but Nathan is not the subject or the target of a federal investigation.”

Deal and Cronan operate a salvage yard in Gainesville that for nearly 20 years enjoyed a no-bid agreement with the state to provide space for inspections of rebuilt vehicles. The AJC reported in August 2009 that Deal intervened with Graham and other state leaders to stop Graham from changing the program that earned Deal and Cronan’s company nearly $300,000 a year.

The newspaper’s report led to a congressional ethics investigation that found Deal possibly violated U.S. House rules. Deal resigned from Congress in March before any formal accusation was made…

Former Georgia Secretary of State Karen Handel and former Rep. Nathan Deal, competing in a Republican runoff primary for governor, have both pulled in about half a million dollars since the first round of primary voting last week, their campaigns said Wednesday.

Handel adviser Robert Simms notified fundraisers of the total in an e-mail message Wednesday morning, writing that Handel “raised $500,000 in one week, surpassing our total for the last fundraising quarter.” Deal spokesman Brian Robinson told POLITICO that as of Tuesday night, the former congressman had raised $498,000 since the July 20 vote.

Both Handel and Deal depleted their campaign accounts before last week’s election: Handel finished with just $66,648 in the bank and Deal had $43,590.

The new influx of campaign funds will allow Handel to go on the air for the first time since the primary, and a campaign source confirmed she has a television ad — only her second of the cycle — planned for Thursday. Deal has already aired one television ad in the runoff, a spot that featured the congressman criticizing federal spending, alongside his young grandsons.

Neither candidate has been in full control of their message, however, and Deal’s campaign was rocked Tuesday evening by an Atlanta Journal-Constitution report that a federal grand jury had called one state official to testify in an investigation of Deal’s vehicle salvage business and its work with the state government.

Robinson dismissed the story, insisting that Deal “is not under subpoena and further, we have been assured that we are not the target of an investigation. There’s not a fire burning here.”

A political blogger also filed an ethics complaint against Handel, alleging that she illegally paid her gubernatorial campaign staff with funds from an old campaign account — from her secretary of state bid — before she officially announced her plans to run for higher office.?

Handel spokesman Dan McLagan dismissed the complaint, saying the charges were meritless and calling the source a “rabid anti-Karen person” who is “literally a blogger who lives in his mom’s basement.”

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